SaintBobby

There were a few empty seats in the corporate area and I'm not sure the Villa end was totally sold out, but it definitely seemed 90%+ full

I get that. As it happened, I don't think we got KWP or Tino to be more aggresive, I think we just went deepet. Then Diallo coming on was even more defensive. It worked cos we won. But felt to me like we should have been out of sight in 30 mins...and ended up defending the 1-0 very hard in the olast 30 mins.

Yeah, you may be missing the point. We were 1-0 up when the substitution was made. We ended up winning 1-0. I understood that from watching the game at St Mary's. My question was what was the rationale for the substiution. S Armstrong off for a central defender seemed like a very big tactical call.

Only watched the game live at the stadium, so am still scratching my head on Lyanco on for Sarmstrong. Any insights in what happened there? I assumed 3 at the back to release Timo and KWP down the flanks? If so, it didn’t work.

Fantastic atmosphere this evening. Solid performance. To pick holes, I guess you’d say we struggle to ever score more than 1 goal, but that aside it was a bit like the Leeds win. Oddly comfortable even with SEVEN minutes of stoppage time. Romeu and Salisu were the stand outs for me. Salisu is starting to look like the perfect genetic merger of Virgil VD and Wanyama!

Terrific three points. Am just daring to look up the table a bit, not just down it

Harsh. We've played well.

Appeal that?

If only we had 6 of the Burnley players in our team - the sort of footballing legends that Turkish, for one, is clear are far better than the current Saints players - I'm sure we'd be safe already....

Robbed. But great point and truly excellent performance.

How does the company liquidate then if needed?

I guess at some stage, he'd take a haircut. But that probably presumes a death spiral in a post-relegation world.

If I was Gao, on purely selfish terms, I'd probably hold out. I want £200m. Not £100m. Or £125m. I also have a large tranche of cash in a real UK asset. If it falls in time to £100m or even £50m I still have a good retirement fund in Western assets. Everythign else I have is dependent on the CCP's behaviour.

I met him in the Saints bar yesterday. Bought the book but havent started it yet. I asked him, a bit cheekily, if he was sure Stokes was onside. He replied "yep, that's why it says "winner" on my 1976 medal"

He was easily man of the match for me. Pretty flawless display. Stephens was very good too.

I see his surprising hot steak continued today with a goal for Norway, away at Latvia.

I'd class it as official as soon as they formally and unambiguously tell someone outside of the club. I'm putting the delay down to incompetence, most likley. The administrative side of the club seems a bit chaotic at the moment.

According to the guy from the Atheltic, it is official. As in the club have formally furnished the information to journalists (same with the new 4 year contract for Stephens). They just haven't announced it on the club's official platforms/website.

I seem to remember it being an opening game of the season. Maybe another record is it’s happened twice - home and away

I'd given up when we went 2-1 down. Thank God the players didn't. Good performance from what I heard on Saints player - and a deserved point.

That was great. Obviously Man Utd are the superior team, but we played well. Last 20 minutes especially gratifying.

Really disappointed wit the manager today

Extraordinary that we have made no subs yet.

Relegation battle, I fear. Probably just about staying up. 15th or so.

I’m expecting us to stick to the 4-2-2-2 system. I’m sort of hoping that Ralph increasingly has his own players, rather than an inherited squad, to make it work. On the downside, the fairly novel style - like many novel ideas - worked for a while but then opponents got wise to it. I blame the Telegraph. They had a lengthy article dissecting and praising Saints’ tactics. Our collapse in form followed publication!